


Spirits In The Night

by labelladonna99



Category: Heroes (TV)
Genre: Heroes TV, M/M, Post-Brave New World, Post-Episode: s07e17-18 Heroes, petlar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 04:33:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13896336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/labelladonna99/pseuds/labelladonna99
Summary: Sylar can't bear to go on without Peter in his life. An original female character helps him find resolution.





	Spirits In The Night

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of sad. I'm sorry. I have no idea where it came from, but once it did, it was a force of nature and would not let me alone until I wrote it all down. If you know my stories, hopefully you'll trust that I won't break your heart for nothing. Let me know what you think in the comments!

Peter comes to him in his dreams, but it’s not really him, only fragments of memories called forth each night to soothe the never-ending emptiness in Sylar’s soul. He didn’t used to believe in God and, ergo, he hadn’t thought he had a soul. Peter changed all that. 

Saint Peter, Sylar used to call him, mockingly, when they still hated one another. He understood now that he had never hated him at all. Sylar hadn’t known, back then, what to do with the feeling that gripped his gut whenever he encountered his nemesis. The sublimated lust and desire, tinged with envy - oh, how he wanted those powers - were Sylar’s undoing. There was jealousy, too, for everything Peter was and everything he’d been handed in life - wealth, family, friends, a place and a purpose in a world that was glad to have him in it. Underneath it all, was Sylar’s aching wish to be seen, to capture the attention of one so powerful and courageous, to be somebody important, special.

The feelings were unfamiliar and painful. So he tried to kill them, the way he snuffed out everything else in his life. People, potential, possibilities. When your own life was meaningless, it was easy to lay waste to everything in your path. The more beautiful it was, the greater his urge to destroy it because it didn’t belong to him. He didn’t deserve it. Any of it.

Peter was different. He wouldn’t die. In his despair and anger, Sylar wanted to ruin him, to yank him down to his own blood-soaked level and blacken the man’s stupid, shining heart but it was no use. Oh, Peter had changed. How could he not after everything that had happened? He was angry, despondent, embittered, traumatized. Even grey at times; he wasn’t perfect after all. Peter was no longer the idealistic, naive young knight he’d once been but the ineffable goodness in him could only be tarnished, like an old piece of silver that needed a bit of polish and elbow grease to restore its luster. None of the cruel insults and accusations - some of them true - that Sylar hurled at Peter behind the wall could break him. Hurt, wound, damage, yes. But he couldn’t make Peter ugly no matter what he said or did. After years alone together, refusing to reveal his battered psyche to the only living being in his world, he gave up. Peter had beaten him at his own game and instead of Sylar bringing Peter down, Peter had lifted him up. Sylar did the only thing left for him to try. He repented and fate shifted, a little hiccup that moved the compass needle just enough to set Sylar, and Peter, too, on a different trajectory. A better one, for once.

One night Sylar dreamed that he and Peter had flown to Tibet. There on a snow-capped mountain top outside of a monastery, he’d said to Peter, “Let’s stay here. Let’s leave it all behind. We can live a quiet life here and you can help people. I’ll find something to do with myself.” Because it was a dream, Peter had agreed. “Sure, Sylar. It’s a little lonely up here in the mountains. But I like it. You know me and high places.” The smile was still on Sylar’s lips when the morning light invaded his lonely bedroom. Then he remembered all over again. There was no dip in the mattress where Peter used to lie beside him. No warm spot left behind when Peter got up to shower. A line from an old song wormed its way into Sylar’s head.  _ Alone again, naturally.  _

So much had happened since they had escaped the mind-prison, stopped Samuel the carnie in his earth-shattering tracks and begun a new life. Yet it had only been a few years ago. It was a life complicated by Claire’s swan dive off a Ferris wheel to reveal the existence of specials. Once again, they had to hide and run but instead of killing people and dueling with Peter whenever the messy-haired hero thwarted him, Sylar helped Peter save lives. Peter, who had once been all-powerful and completely reckless and thoughtless, became the brains of their operation and Sylar, the brain-man himself, was the muscle. Well, not exactly. But Peter had learned to be more strategic in the use of his one and only power even if he’d never fully tamed his unthinking passionate impulses. That was fine with Sylar. It was Peter’s passion that he loved most. Peter’s good looks were merely the hot fudge sauce on the sundae - emphasis on hot.

It was all ashes now. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” the priest had intoned at Peter’s funeral. It was Angela Petrelli - that bitch - who of all people attempted to comfort Sylar at the gravesite. She had tried to stop Peter from entering Sylar’s mind, no doubt envisioning a future she found disturbing. Massive understatement, that. Later, Angela had railed at Peter for his alliance, and relationship, with Sylar, but apparently even she of the perfect posture could be worn down.

“He loved you, Gabriel,” she said, the landscape of her eternally stoic face reshaped by grief. “I had no choice but to accept it. Peter made me realize that you’d changed. That boy always did see the good in everyone.” Angela paused to dab at her eyes with a handkerchief. “I know how much you cared for my son.” She had laid her hand on his forearm then and though Sylar had wanted to peel it off like removing a leech from his skin, he allowed it. For Peter. 

“My name is Sylar,” was his only reply, with a glance at her tear-stained face as she stood beside him with her perfect coiffure and slim black dress. “That’s how he knew me and it’s what he always called me. I would appreciate it if you would stop calling me Gabriel. That was another life.”

“Alright….Sylar,” she had said and it was obvious from her expression that the taste of his chosen name in her mouth was like eating dirt. “If there’s anything….”

“No. Thank you but there’s nothing. Not unless you can bring him back … “ He looked her full in the face now. “...and we know how that worked out the last time you tried your hand at reincarnation.”

She actually winced and Sylar was taken aback that she had let him see that. He’d rarely known her to let down her guard but mourning messed with people’s heads. He’d seen that every day, up close and personal, when he’d been trapped with her grieving son. “I deserve that,” she admitted.

“No, forgive me. That was cruel of me. He was never unkind. I need to remember that. I owe it to him.”

“What will you do now?” she asked. He followed her gaze, taking in the expansive cemetery and avoiding the unpleasant reality of the mound of dirt before them.

Eternity, alone. Sylar’s immortal heart would never stop beating no matter how much he yearned for death. His worst nightmare come true after all. It was bound to happen, eventually, for Peter had been resolutely mortal. “Take regeneration….and keep it this time. Please, Peter.” It was their most frequent argument and of course Peter the hero would never preserve his own mortality at the expense of all the lives he could save by trading the many powers at his disposal.

Sylar found his voice to answer Angela’s question. “I - I hardly know where to go from here. I hadn't thought that far ahead. I suppose I‘ll continue his - our - mission. I think that’s what he would have wanted.”

“Good luck to you, then,” Angela said, with convincing sincerity. Maybe she had meant it. 

Sylar nodded his thanks and Angela turned to walk in the other direction, making her way in her elegant, high heeled stride to the car that was waiting for her. He didn’t watch her get in, instead staring at the polished, gilded box that held the person he loved most in the world, more than life itself. It was all so futile. Sylar couldn’t even squeeze out a single tear. 

Two years and the pain was still so raw, as if he had lost Peter just yesterday. The only comfort he could find was in his work, which he pursued with single-minded ferocity, seeking to exhaust his inexhaustible body, so that he could sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream. Every night, he sunk into the mattress, content in the knowledge that he would soon see Peter, if only the wishful-thinking version of him that Sylar conjured. He had no idea how he managed to make himself dream of Peter night after night for 746 days. It was almost like an ability, or some mystical connection to Peter that Sylar had always felt (and had denied for a very long time) but more likely it was simply the ravages of loss. 

In one of his dreams, he broached the topic with Peter. They were lying side by side in bed, Sylar’s favorite place to spend time with his beautiful lover. Peter was on his back, his arms folded behind his head. Sylar lay on his side, admiring Peter’s long, messy hair. Sylar had loved to play with it, to run his fingers through the thick, soft tresses and tuck the unruly strands behind Peter’s ear.    
  
“Do you think we could ever be together again, Peter? For real?”

Peter’s crooked mouth quirked up at the corners. “Would be nice. Are you asking if I think there’s an ability…?”

“Maybe. An ability that would undo my regeneration. Or bring you back.” Sylar hardly dared take his eyes off Peter, knowing this was a dream and wanting to preserve every infinitesimal second of their time together.

“I don’t know, Sylar. Have you looked?”

“You know I don’t do that anymore.” The mere suggestion of hunting specials was upsetting to Sylar.

“I didn’t mean kill someone. Maybe something synthetic, y’know, from a lab?”

“That’s it, Peter,” Sylar said, sitting up in bed.  “Mohinder! I need to talk to him. You’re brilliant!”

“Ha, not really. I’m just a figment of your imagination.”

Sylar turned back to Peter who looked as unperturbed as he’d been when the dream began. He didn’t mind being make-believe but Sylar minded. “Ugh, don’t remind me. Please don’t ever say that.”

“I love you, Sylar.”

“I love you, too, Peter. I think it’s almost morning. I’ll see you tonight.” He traced Peter’s mouth with a finger and then bent to kiss him, a short peck followed by a long, lingering smooch. He woke with his face in the pillow. 

Mohinder had never gotten past his wariness around Sylar. Sylar could hardly blame him but he was grateful that the man agreed to see him.

“That sounds mad, Sylar!” the scientist said, in his pristine colonial Indian accent, when Sylar explained what he wanted. 

“Spare me the moralizing. Can you do it? That’s all I want to know.”

“Can I kill you? That’s what you’re asking me.”

“Why not? You know you’ve always wanted to.” Sylar couldn’t resist a smirk at the other man’s discomfiture.

“That was a long time ago,” Mohinder huffed in his very proper manner. “In any event, I don’t know that there’s a way to reverse the regeneration ability. Of course raising people from the dead is impossible. But perhaps I could give you the ability to control your dreams.”   
  
“That’s not enough. I see Peter every night,” Sylar snapped. Mohinder stared at him, uncomprehending, his almost black eyes like round, dark-chocolate marbles. For a supposedly smart guy, he was astoundingly slow at times. “In my dreams, Mohinder. I have lucid dreams but they’re not Peter, they’re me imagining him. And as time goes by, there are little details I forget...his voice, I’m not sure I remember exactly how it sounded.” Sylar prowled the lab as he spoke, peering at pieces of equipment he had never seen before. It was a large lab and rather high tech instead of the rows of test tubes and animals in cages that tended to comprise his mental image of a scientific lab despite how many labs he had seen. Mohinder must be doing well. Sylar turned back to meet the geneticist’s gaze and saw something other than the fear and loathing that had marked their previous relationship. It was compassion.

“Alright then.” Mohinder was all business now. “I’ll need a DNA sample. I should draw your blood, to be thorough.” 

Sylar marveled at how much had changed that he could trust Mohinder to stick a needle into his arm. Last time, they had tag-teamed on trying to kill one another. There was no longer any reason for it, no need. Mohinder was aware of the Institute and occasionally offered his consulting services though their paths didn’t cross often. Sylar had always preferred to confine his relationships to specials.

In the end, it wasn’t Mohinder who had presented a possible answer to Sylar’s dilemma, but another special. She was fourteen, on the run from a government that wanted to test her ability. Micah Sanders had found her and guided her on the underground tech trail that he had devised for runaway specials.

“What’s your ability?” Sylar had asked the girl, whose name was Jenna, during the intake evaluation. The room was painted in soft, muted colors and lit by lamps. Photographs on the walls showed happy, laughing people. Stock photography but all the models were specials. His question was routine but the old hunger, long ago conquered but never quite extinguished, kept him alert and curious about abilities. It was what made him such an expert evaluator. Abilities were fascinating, never boring. Already he sensed something different about this chubby, freckle-faced girl. Peter’s belief in God and spirituality had rubbed off on Sylar and though he was never going to be a church-going man, or even a praying one, he had come to believe that Hamlet was right about what he’d said to Horatio.  _ There are more things in heaven and earth…. _ It was something about the girl’s eyes that Sylar couldn’t identify, a vibe that told him she was wise about things a fourteen-year-old had no business knowing.

“I guess you could say I’m a spirit-walker.”  _ I knew it _ , Sylar crowed to himself, although he didn’t quite understand what that meant.

“How does that work?” he probed. The girl shifted in her seat, distancing herself from him and Sylar realized he was leaning forward a bit too intently. He’d probably scared her. He tended to still have that effect on people at times. He sat back, adopting a more relaxed posture and tried again. “Can you describe your ability in more detail?” He kept his voice gentle as he offered an explanation for his questions. “It’s important to know all of the particulars so we can help you to master your gift.”

“Okay, so like there’s this old movie. It came out before I was born....” The girl twirled a strand of hair around her finger as she spoke and when it was so tightly wound that Sylar thought she might cut off the blood supply to her finger, he decided that he needed to call in reinforcement.   
  
“Would you excuse me for a minute? I’ll be right back.” He left her sitting in the chair while he went to find Micah. He had a feeling the girl might be more relaxed with someone closer to her own age. He returned with the young man, who at 22 years old retained the boyishness of a teenager. Did he even shave yet? After Sylar introduced the two young people, Micah offered the girl a soda and flashed a winsome smile that probably got him laid regularly. He commented on her t-shirt, some band Sylar had never heard of, and the two launched into pop culture chit chat. Sylar drummed his fingers on his leg, eager to get started again but glad he’d brought Micah in.  _ Empathy points for me! _  Religion wasn’t the only thing about Peter that had rubbed off on him.

“You were saying something about a movie earlier,” Sylar began. “Jenna, right?” The girl nodded, more relaxed now than she had been with just Sylar in the room.

“Sixth Sense. It came out before I was born. Have you ever seen it?”   
  
“‘I see dead people.’ That movie?” He quirked an eyebrow and something other than curiosity flared in his brain, a feeling more like … hope. 

“Yeah, that’s the one. It’s just like that, too. I see them, I can, like, talk to them, hang out, you know, just chill.” 

“Uh yeah, chill sounds like a good word for it,” Sylar remarked, trying not to laugh at the girl’s mundane description of something so macabre.

“Oh my God,” Micah interjected. “No wonder you like MCR!”

Jenna giggled. “I know, right!”

The joke flew over Sylar’s head but MCR sounded familiar. Wasn’t that one of the loud, obnoxious bands that Peter listened to? Sylar almost missed the noise and how much it reminded him of his lost friend. He’d give anything to have his ear drums blasted again if it meant getting to spend time with Peter. The real Peter, not his ersatz dream lover. His hunger was straining at its leash as he itched to know more about this young girl’s ability. How much control did she have over who she saw? A mental picture formed of himself and Peter, lying in bed only to have George Washington knock down the door. He suppressed a smirk and encouraged Jenna to expand on her spirit walking talent.

“So yeah, um, I can’t always choose who I see. At first I had no control at all. There were, like, dead people everywhere,” Jenna said, giggling again and then growing serious. “I didn’t know they were dead so I just seemed nuts like talking to people who weren’t there. My school made my parents take me to a head doctor. The doc wanted to put me on meds but my parents were freaked out about that. They wanted me to try therapy first. And that’s how I started learning to control it but I still can’t always turn it off, y’know?”

Sylar nodded in sympathy. It was the same for most specials first discovering their powers. Some had it worse than others, when their powers were significant, or potentially dangerous. “Did the therapist know you were a special?” Sylar inquired.

“Nope, she thought I was bonkers but the therapy she was using to get me to control my hallucinations - that’s what she thought they were - actually worked. But like, I still need to practice because I don’t want all these dead people around all the time.”

_ Shit! What if she isn’t special and her school and her therapist are right? Could she be mentally ill?  _ Sylar’s instinct for specials had always been reliable. Some slipped past his radar but he’d never identified anyone as special and been wrong. This girl felt special. Apparently the government thought so too if she was here.

“How did the government find out about you?”

“The therapist figured it out.” Jenna shrugged. “I knew stuff I shouldn’t have known. I didn’t know it was real; everyone thought I was sick, and I figured I was, too. I got switched to a new therapist,” she gestured with her hands to form air quotes around the word therapist, “but it was really a government doc investigating me. Then the testing started. My parents withdrew permission but the government said they didn’t need parental permission to investigate specials.” 

Sylar felt himself getting angry as Jenna began to cry recounting the testing the government agents had put her through. He hated this part of the intake; everyone did. It was too much like what he and all the others had undergone at the hands of the Company or, later, the government. Eegs, CT scans, MRIs, blood draws, shunts, radioactive dye and God only knew what else injected into their veins, biofeedback, neurofeedback and hours and hours of questions, constant surveillance and intrusion into their lives. Then there was the bigotry when friends and neighbors found out someone was “one of  _ them _ .” Freaks. Weirdos. Dangerous aliens. When the government offered Jenna a free summer camp for children like her, her parents knew it was only a matter of time before they lost control of the situation. They made the arrangements to run and with Micah’s help, they’d found themselves here, at the Institute. It was the talent and dedication of numerous specials that helped keep the place a secret. That and staying mobile.

Sylar stood up and stretched. “Ok, let’s take a break. We can talk more tomorrow if you’re up to it. It sounds like you’re well on your way to controlling your ability. We can work on getting you to mastery so that it becomes a talent that enhances your life, instead of taking away from it.”

Micah escorted the girl back to the room where her parents had waited during the intake eval. It, too, was designed to be friendly and welcoming. It was nothing like the cold, clinical spaces Sylar remembered from the Company. By the time he went out to meet the girl’s parents, Jenna was back to her giggly self. Good.

In his dream that night, Sylar told Peter that he might have found an answer for them to be together again. Peter asked a lot of questions. He seemed happy but not as happy as he would have been if he’d been real and not just Sylar’s imaginary approximation of what Peter had been like. He thought he’d had every detail of Peter etched into his memory forever, but it didn’t work that way. Every night, he could feel his Peter slipping further and further away.

Over the next six weeks, a team of specials helped Jenna to use her ability with greater precision. Her parents had chosen the relocation option and soon they would be getting new identities and new lives. Sylar kept an eye on things, waiting for the right moment before she disappeared forever. He didn’t work with her directly as his expertise was with dangerous specials, like the one who had killed Peter.

He still remembered that night in excruciating detail even as the sharp outlines of Peter faded more and more from his memory. They had been looking for a man who could create laser beams. He was young and scared, they’d been told, and had gone into hiding from the government agents who tried to capture him.

What was missing from the report was that the young man was a sociopath. He hadn’t been afraid. This was a game to him and he was enjoying it, dangling seasoned agents from his hook. They hadn’t known that until later. Peter had found him first, living in an abandoned apartment building in Baltimore. Peter was coaxing the terrified man to trust him and there was something that wasn’t quite right although from outside the building where Sylar was checking for specials, hidden agents, and other surprises, he couldn’t discern what it was. The telepathy power was creepy and Sylar rarely used it but it was a must when tracking specials. 

Sylar could feel the man’s fear in his mind and he sensed that Peter was patient, but wary. Something had tripped Peter's bullshit meter. Done checking the building perimeter, Sylar rushed inside as the thoughts he was picking up became jumbled and chaotic. Too late, he arrived to witness the man wielding his laser beams and Peter hitting the floor. Sylar TK’d laser dude but with no electricity in the building, it was dark in the apartment and he was distracted, calling for backup and checking Peter’s injuries. The man got away. By the time help arrived, as quick as it was, it was too late. The nano fabric armor Peter had worn was protective but it wasn’t magic. He died with his head in Sylar's lap, while two fellow paramedics - both specials - tried to save him. Claire’s blood might have healed him but she had disappeared long ago, her life wrecked by the unending scrutiny after her ill-fated leap from the Ferris wheel. Even Micah had been unable to locate her. 

“Man, I’m so sorry, Sylar. He’s gone.” The shorter, curly-haired medic squeezed and rubbed his shoulder in a comforting manner, just like Peter would have done, triggering a wave of grief that hit Sylar like a tsunami. He bent his face to Peter’s and pressed their cheeks together, his hair falling forward to form a curtain of privacy, while his tears soaked them both. Sylar stayed like that until his neck was stiff and the tears, for now, were spent. When he finally let them take Peter in the ambulance - an Institute ambulance because they could never risk taking specials to regular hospitals - he rode in the back with Peter. The paramedics were kind; they didn’t pull a sheet over Peter’s face or call in his time of death. It was a twelve minute ride during which Sylar’s brain was unable to form coherent thoughts. Thoughts meant knowing and knowing meant planning how to live without Peter and he couldn’t face that right now. He allowed his logical brain to go dormant, and let himself be blanketed by emotion and physical sensation. Sylar stroked Peter’s beautiful, glossy hair with one hand, the other tightly laced with Peter’s fingers while his eyes tried to memorize every curve, angle and plane, every joint, every tiny wrinkle of this lovely man he had been so lucky to know and love.

Somehow Sylar had gotten through the worst of it. You just did. Working with specials, he saw a great deal of tragedy. He tried not to remind himself of how often he had been the cause of it. People managed their pain and loss everyday and had always done so. He wasn’t special nor were his grief and loss any greater or more tragic than other people’s. He went to work and it helped him to get over his damn self. He found some closure when he learned that laser man had been killed in a battle with government agents. It meant he didn’t have to break his promise to Peter and kill the fucker himself. 

Jenna’s training was winding down. He needed to speak with her. Probably her parents too. It was unprofessional of him but he didn’t care. They didn’t need to know the reason.

Jenna’s parents were appreciative of everything the Institute had done for them. They were on their way to a new life with a daughter whose strange power was now contained and controlled. Yet they couldn’t help but be wary of Sylar’s request after what they’d been through and what Jenna had endured. The idea of anyone wanting to experiment on her brain, well, it was distasteful if not downright frightening.

“I understand more than you can know,” Sylar said. “Most of us have had experiences similar to Jenna’s. Those my age and older fell into the hands of an unpleasant organization known as the Company. We would never want to do anything to replicate those experiences. The whole reason for our existence is to provide a more compassionate alternative.”

Jenna’s parents nodded at Sylar and exchanged a look with one another. Encouraged, he continued. 

“It’s fellow specials that make this place run, so we can do what we do and help people like yourselves and Jenna. The more abilities we can harness, the better able we are to ensure everyone’s safety. Many choose to stay here and work with us but we don’t believe in holding anyone against their will or through guilt. What we do here is a calling.”

“Alright,” Jenna’s mother said. “You’ve convinced me and if Jenna agrees, we are on board.”

“Wait a second,” her dad interjected. “Look, we  _ are _ grateful and that’s a nice story you just told us but I’m not agreeing to anything until I know what you’re going to be doing to my daughter. What is the procedure?”

“There is no procedure,” Sylar assured them. “It’s really a rather passive thing as I won’t be taking Jenna’s ability but receiving a copy of it. There are no injections or blood draws, no invasive testing. At most I might need to hold Jenna’s hand. I’m just going to talk with her. You can watch the entire time.” They didn’t need to know about the empathy. That was personal and not something he cared to share.

Having convinced the Martiranos and their daughter, Sylar released the breath he didn’t know he had been holding. His rib cage was rigid with the stress, wrapping around him like an iron lung. “Breathe,” he reminded himself. It wouldn’t work if he couldn’t relax and let his emotions run free, something that had never come naturally to him.

That night, he held Peter close in his dream and told him that soon, they’d be together and nothing could separate them ever again. The dream was flimsy around the edges, all of the sensations weak and muted. Even the old t-shirt of Peter’s that Sylar had never washed had lost the man’s scent when Sylar woke from the dream and held it to his nose. .

“I need you to sit across from me and tell me about your therapy. Can you do that?” Sylar asked Jenna the next day. Her parents were in an adjacent room where they could watch through a window. 

“Sure,” she said, settling onto a comfortable sofa and explaining how the therapist had begun to catch on and must have known for sure when Jenna spoke to her about her mother. Then this person, this professional in whom Jenna and her family had placed their trust, ratted her out to the government.

Nothing was happening. Sylar was tense and he couldn’t seem to get a channel open.

“Do you mind talking about the testing?” Sylar needed it to be visceral in order to feel Jenna’s feelings.

She detailed her testing as she had done during their first meeting and It made him angry, as always, but that didn’t seem to be the right emotion for this transfer of ability. Sylar lowered his voice and asked for Jenna’s hand. Feeling like an emotional ghoul, he was about to request an experience of loss or pain when she leaned forward and whispered. “I know this isn’t for the Institute. It’s okay. I want to help you anyway.”

“What do you mean?” Sylar tried to maintain the pretense although he spared a moment to consider that Peter wouldn’t have lied and that he had a long way to go before he’d ever meet that man’s impossible standard. 

“You lost somebody you love.” Her ancient eyes in the face of a teenager were unnerving. “I understand. My grandma died and I can’t talk to her. I miss her so much.”

That was puzzling. “Why can’t you…ohhh. I think I know.”

“They have to want to be seen. A lot don’t. I thought for sure my grandma would never leave me.” Her big eyes began to water. “They’re happy to be away from … all this,” she finished with a despondent wave of her hand. 

Sylar felt his hope flickering like a faulty light bulb. The dead were happy being dead. He hadn’t considered that and if anybody would acclimate to heaven, it would be Peter. What if all this were for nothing? He’d have to finally face the totality of his loss as the dream Peter became more and more imaginary and less like the real person Sylar had known.

A squeeze of his hand brought him back to the present. “I think I might’ve seen him, Mr. Sylar.” Jenna’s gaze, at once innocent and knowing, was steady on his face. 

“What? Peter? You spoke to him?” Sylar leaned in, invading Jenna’s space but she wasn’t afraid of him anymore. “Tell me!” The need to know licked at his conscience like flames slowly eating away at a structure and it disgusted him that somewhere deep within, he wanted to cut this sweet girl’s head open. He wouldn’t. The sins he could never repay had extracted their toll and while he could never undo them and no penance would ever suffice, he had made what restitution he could. He hadn’t been lying when he said this work was a calling. Jenna, and all specials, were safe with him. 

Still, the sick temptation would never be completely vanquished.

Jenna told him that a man had greeted her a few days ago. She hadn’t realized immediately that he was dead until he had said her name and then she inspected him more closely. She asked how he knew her and he said they had a mutual friend in common. “Tell Mr. Sylar that I said hello, ok?”

“I was going to tell you,” she said, looking sorrowfully into Sylar’s questioning eyes. “It didn’t seem that important until like, just now, when we started talking and I realized how much he must have meant to you.”

  
“It’s alright,” Sylar said distractedly. “I’m not angry with you.” Goddamn it, Peter! How many people get the chance to send a message from beyond and all he had to say was “hello.” Couldn’t he have given a firmer indication of whether this whole exercise would be worthwhile? Did he want to be seen or was he happy, as Jenna had said, to have left it all behind? 

“That’s it, then? Just hello?” Suddenly it was funny and he had to laugh, his pointy incisors showing and transforming his rather forbidding face so that he looked younger and more approachable. “Hello!” It was so Peter, sweet, simple and kind of dumb. Jenna laughed, too, and as tears of mirth ran out of their eyes, he felt the transfer of power begin to flow from Jenna to him. It was liquid gold entering his veins and pumped by his heart through his body to his brain, filling every capillary and bathing every structure, every neuron in pure ability. God, he loved the feeling of acquiring a new power! This would never get old. 

The girl’s eyes were wide and rounded. She felt it too and her pretty face was lit with wonder. It made Sylar glad to see that she appreciated her power and gave him confidence that she would use it well. He’d always had a soft spot for specials who enjoyed their abilities. He took Jenna’s other hand in his as the transfer completed itself in the warmth of his feelings for her. She had earned his everlasting admiration and gratitude. To think, after enduring so much misery and isolation in his lonely life, he now had a growing list of people for whom he would do anything. Even the unending pain of losing Peter could never dampen the joy that list gave him. Perhaps he wasn’t so alone after all.

Sylar didn’t dream of Peter that night or for several nights following. His mind was overwhelmed as it always was when he acquired a new ability via empathy. Unlike his previous method, which resulted in an instantaneous mastery, this way was more clumsy. When he had first begun to use his empathy, Sylar had found himself impatient with having to learn what he had used to automatically know. He hadn’t yet begun to value people for more than their utility to him and therefore, feeling what they felt was messy and uncomfortable. Now, he rather liked that feeling of oneness with another person as well as this slow and gradual unfolding of ability. It was mysterious. Beautiful, really. Embarrassing, too, at times. It wasn’t like him to walk around with his head in the clouds but that’s what he had been doing during the first week of spirit walking. Each time he was observed talking to someone that nobody else could see, he had gotten strange looks from his fellow members at the Institute. “New power,” he’d say and they would nod and think nothing more of it. 

He met many people that first week, although none of them were Peter. Sylar was grateful that he hadn’t met his adoptive mother, or, God forbid, Nathan Petrelli. It would be just punishment for him to be visited by all the people he had murdered, but perhaps his debt was finally paid because it didn’t happen. He wouldn’t have minded seeing his real mother, but she didn’t appear either. Meanwhile, Sylar had begun to discern the dead from the living and to limit the numbers of people who surrounded him. Several times he had consulted Jenna for advice but now she was gone and he was on his own. Would Peter ever show himself?

On an unseasonably warm night in March, Sylar left work and took a walk to clear his head. The city sidewalks were teeming with people, both living and dead, some of them given away by their anachronistic clothing. With others, he needed to concentrate to recognize that the dead lacked the aura that glowed subtly from the living. Greater focus allowed him to hide some of the dead people from his view. It was easier with the ones who had been dead longer. When he reached 60th street, he turned and entered the park, in search of his favorite pond. It was a place he had often gone with Peter when they were trapped in the mind-prison with nothing better to do than explore the empty city. Later, they would still go there for old times’ sake. The pond came into view and Sylar gathered a small pile of rocks. Placing them at his feet, he began to toss them across the water. He was rusty, not having visited this spot since before Peter’s death. It took him several tries to get his stones to skip across the pond instead of sinking as soon as they landed on the surface. His last stone made five skips; he was satisfied. 

Brushing the dirt off his hands, he turned to leave. “That was a good one,” a voice beside him said. Sylar was almost afraid to look, fearing that he might be wishing so hard that he had called forth another imaginary Peter. He looked and Peter was real, solid, breathing just as if he were alive. He smelled like Peter, that subtle scent of soap, aftershave and shampoo combined with Peter’s natural essence, and he was so damn beautiful it hurt Sylar’s eyes.

“Hello, Peter,” he said with a smirk.

“That’s it, then? Just hello?” Peter smirked back.

“Oh God I’ve missed you,” Sylar said, grabbing the smaller man in a bear hug. 

Peter hugged back, squeezing Sylar just as hard as the grip Sylar had on him. “I’ve missed you, too. A lot.”

“What’s it like?” Sylar asked him in a quiet voice, still hugging and burying his face in Peter’s hair.

“It’s hard to explain in words. It’s … peaceful. I’m glad to see you, though.”

Sylar pulled his head back to meet Peter’s eyes, his large hands wrapped around his friend’s upper arms. “You have no idea how glad I am to see you. It’s been awful without you.”

“I know,” Peter said and Sylar could see the sadness there. “I’m sorry. But we’re here, now. C’mon, let’s walk.” He touched Sylar’s shoulder, the way he always used to, and that simple, familiar gesture, more than the sight and smell and feel of him, more than the hug, brought tears to Sylar’s eyes. He blinked them away. He wasn’t going to waste these precious moments crying.

“Wait.” His hands were still on Peter’s shoulders, not yet willing to let go after wishing and hoping for more than 800 days that he would somehow see Peter again. “How much time do we have? How does this work?”

The edges of Peter’s hair shone in the light from the street lamps that lined the park. “I don’t really know, Sylar. It’s complicated. I have...other things I have to do. We can be together but it’s not going to be all the time. And it’s not going to be forever. There are limits. Let’s just enjoy this moment, right now.”

“Okay, Peter. I can handle that. Nothing is forever, right? There are always limits. Isn’t that what love is, learning to live with limits?” A smile grew on Sylar's face as his eyes drank in the sight of his first and most beloved friend.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Peter smiled back, his old crooked smile. It warmed Sylar’s heart that even as a spirit, Peter still retained this tiny, perfect imperfection. “And knowing that you’re not alone. You’re never alone, Sylar.”

It was enough. Sylar would live in the present, giving thanks to whatever gods might be listening, appreciating this gift that, at long last, he believed he deserved.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


  
  


  
  



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